Dominant Terol Takes Easy Win At Indianapolis

The 125cc Grand Prix of Indianapolis went largely to form as Nicolas Terol stormed to his sixth victory of the season, extending his championship lead in the process. The Spaniard dominated the race from start to finish and was never under any great pressure from behind, with the battle for second raging on in his wake.

Sandro Cortese and Johann Zarco were the men hoping to take the fight to Terol from the front row of the grid but the pole sitter left them for dead at the start. His lead was over a second at the end of the first lap with Maverick Vinales coming through from fourth on the grid to take second ahead of Zarco and Hector Faubel.

The fight for second was initially between those three but a group of three riders behind them gradually hauled themselves into play. Cortese was leading it in fifth after a terrible first lap while Sergio Gadea and Efren Vazquez followed him closely. Danny Kent should have been with them but took a costly trip through the gravel on lap eight.

By half distance, the two packs had converged together and the battle for the second step on the podium now featured six riders. Surprisingly, it was Zarco who appeared to be in the most difficulty as faint trails of smoke started to leave the Derbi. The Frenchman slipped all the way back to seventh while Vinales used the incident as an opportunity to stretch away.

Another subsequence of Zarco's problem was the demise of Hector Faubel who lost third to Gadea before quickly falling into the clutches of Vazquez in sixth place. This allowed Cortese some breathing space and left him free to chase down Vinales, and with four laps left to run, the race was on again for P2.

The two swapped places lap after lap with turn one the overtaking hotspot. Cortese scythed past into second at the start of the penultimate lap but Vinales wouldn't be denied, returning the favour as the final lap got underway.

Despite pressurising the 16 year old through the final few turns, Cortese was forced to settle for third with Vinales an superb second. None of them had an answer for Terol though who cruised home almost unnoticed to a crushing victory.

Sergio Gadea just missed out on the podium in fourth while Zarco managed to battle back to fifth as his Derbi machine returned to full capacity in the closing stages. Although he sneaked past teammate Vazquez on the run to the line, the Frenchman still lost valuable points in the race for the title.

The battle between the two Avant-AirAsia-Ajo teammates went all the way to the line

Faubel eventually fell back to a lonely seventh with Miguel Oliveira bouncing back from the disappointment of Brno to finish eighth. Jonas Folger rode a quiet race to ninth while the in-form Jakub Kornfeil rounded out the top ten for Ongetta-Centro-Seta.

Unfortunately for the team, Harry Stafford couldn't join the Czech rider in the points after retiring early on. Taylor Mackenzie also had a difficult race which included a trip through the grass but he at least made it home in 21st.

Danny Kent kept his head after the early mistake to rescue some points in 13th but fellow Briton Danny Webb didn't take the start after injuring his hand in qualifying.